Vikings and Downtown East Commons

The Vikings Stadium and the environs have sparked much writing here on streets.mn; this week brings another round of coverage. The Met Council is Spending $6,000,000 on this Unnecessary Pedestrian Bridge? is incredulous about the price and dubious about the need for this bridge for crossing the street and LRT tracks recently approved by the Metro Council Transportation Committee (the full Council votes April 22, 2015). This post was far and away the comment winner of the week with some comparison to the Killebrew Bridge at the Mall of America, comparing costs of enforcement and traffic control at grade level, and quite a lot of comments about trolls of the Norwegian/Three Billy Goats Gruff variety.

Hopkins

The suburb of Hopkins (America’s Raspberry Capital) has not figured prominently in streets.mn coverage until this week. It’s Time For Hopkins to Be Selfish looks at possible configurations of Blake Road as it is reconstructed. Blake Road is also Hennepin County Route 20 and the tension between building a local street which serves Hopkins well and a county highway which moves traffic through Hopkins is obvious; the post provides detailed consideration of plans, alternatives and rationale. As is often the case with project-based posts, the comments dig into details, compare other projects and add some thoughtful suggestions. Also about Hopkins is this short video about the Southwest LRT – Downtown Hopkins but also about connecting the LRT stations with the heart of downtown.

An example of what a neighborhood-scale Blake Road, Hopkins might look like.

Videos:Almanzo 100 is a short video about the near legendary gravel race in southeast Minnesota. This free, register-on-a-postcard 100-mile race was created and sustained by Chris Skogen until this year; now the city of Spring Valley is organizing the May 15-17 race weekend (you still register on a postcard). Southwest LRT – Downtown Hopkins is a Hopkins promotional video about the benefits LRT will bring to downtown Hopkins and what the city will do to link the not-quite-downtown station to the historic downtown.

Spring is really here with daffodils but also with worms which cling to bicycle tires (and every other part of the bike) after Spring rains. Get outside and look around your streets, then write about it for us. Have a great week!